In 2016, Fire Chief Michael Benson was looking at an electric vehicle for his upcoming retirement. He and another Ohio fire chief started investigating electric vehicles and realized electrification is going to be part of the fire service. They also confirmed most fire stations (and police, admin, etc.) were not designed to support electric apparatus.
“We look at this electrification transition as akin to going from all horses 120 years ago to all automotive 20 years later,” Benson said.
Current fire stations use fossil fuels and the electric grid for power. The introduction of electric vehicles—fire apparatus and cars—will require thinking differently about fire stations, apparatus and other vehicles. According to Benson, Los Angeles, Madison, WI, and Gilbert, AZ, currently have EV trucks in service, and 18 more departments are getting EV fire vehicles this year.
As a result, Michael Benson, MPA, and Robert Pursley, Ph.D., co-founded Command Consulting, LLC, Wadsworth, OH. They started the company to assist municipalities in planning and educating public safety agencies about the microgrid technology that exists today. The U.S. Military is building microgrids on their bases, and in 2016, Montgomery County, MD, created the energy-as-a-service financing model for municipalities to pay for them.
“How do you charge a fire truck in 15-20 minutes when they have depleted their battery pack?” Benson asked. “The design of the EV is extremely efficient, especially for fire trucks that stay on the scene for hours. In addition, being EV, there would be no need for earplugs because the vehicle is quiet, and an electric motor runs the pump.”
As a retired fire chief, Benson realized if you were going to have electric emergency vehicles, you had to be able to turn them around quickly. Over the course of a year, crews go out, come back, refill tanks, decontaminate the vehicle and gear and change shifts. To charge the fire truck, it would take megawatts of power, which is huge from a momentary peak demand and it has to happen 24/7/365 no matter what’s happening with the grid.
The microgrid
Benson explained, “The grid fails all the time, and we can’t rely on that because if the fire truck doesn’t respond, people die. Risk reduction will apply; put a battery on the building big enough to charge the vehicles inside the building and then let’s charge that with solar panels on the building and charge it throughout the year.
“That’s when we learned, it can operate on its own because it’s a battery and it’s solar. The microgrid has enough power because you design it with a high amount of energy and a high amount of power to charge fire trucks quickly and with more than enough power to do it more than once a day.”
Since retirement, Benson and his partner have spent five years explaining to people the mission-critical microgrid (Pat.Pend.).
“EVs are coming whether you want them or not,” Benson said. “You’re going to need a way to charge them quickly. So, put a battery pack in your garage, charging panels on the roof and it will offset your energy costs and pay for itself. EVs are less costly to operate because you’re driving on sunshine, not gas and you’re saving taxpayer’s dollars.”
Benson suggested, “If you are designing a fire station today, plan that you are going to be putting solar panels on the roof, have a battery-powered backup attached to it and have a generator as well, but as a cursory power source, maybe smaller and less expensive because it will charge the battery pack, not the whole building. It’s a more efficient, better way to package your system.”
Resistance to change because of tradition is no longer an argument. The past 30 years have proven some traditions need to be retired. The fire service has proved it can and will embrace changes to meet evolving responsibilities.
Janet A. Wilmoth | Special Projects Director
Janet Wilmoth grew up in a family of firefighters in a suburb of Chicago. Wilmoth, who is owner of Wilmoth Associates, worked with Fire Chief magazine for 27 years until it closed in 2013. She currently is the project director for Firehouse, overseeing the Station Design Conference.
